Senate panel to investigate meetings between Russians, Obama officials
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Senate Finance Committee is probing meetings reportedly held in 2015 between two of former President Barack Obama’s top economic officials and Maria Butina, a Russian national who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to covertly influence U.S. foreign policy, the panel said Friday.
Committee leadership published letters sent to the current heads of the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve raising concerns over reports that Ms. Butina, a 30-year-old gun-rights activist, met with officials from the agencies during the Obama administration.
“The Senate Finance Committee has a constitutional responsibility to engage in vigilant oversight of entities and government agencies within its jurisdiction,” wrote Senators Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, the committee’s chairman and ranking member, respectively. “A critical issue facing the Committee and the country is the extent to which the Russian government engaged in efforts designed to undermine our political system and governmental policy through obfuscation and manipulation.”
Reuters first reported last year that Ms. Butina and Alexander Torshin, a former top official for the Russian Central Bank, met in 2015 with Stanley Fischer, then-Federal Reserve vice chairman, and Nathan Sheets, then-Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, to discuss “U.S.-Russian economic relations during Democratic former President Barack Obama’s administration.”
Mr. Torshin was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in April 2018, and Butina was arrested three months later and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the foreign government. She subsequently pleaded guilty to a related count of conspiracy and is awaiting sentencing.
“Given what is now known about them from public court filings, it is concerning that Ms. Butina and Mr. Torshin were able to gain access to high-level administration officials to reportedly discuss U.S. Russian economic relations,” Mr. Grassley and Mr. Wyden wrote in letters seeking details about the meetings.
“Furthermore, it is imperative to understand the substance and extent to which Ms. Butina and Mr. Torshin lobbied other administration officials in an effort to change U.S. policy toward Russia or other countries and whether decisions were made as a result of these meetings,” the senators wrote.
The letters were sent Thursday to Steven Mnuchin, the secretary of the Treasury, and Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Messages seeking comment from both agencies were not immediately answered over the weekend.
A third letter was sent to Dimitri K. Simes, the president and CEO of the Center for the National Interest, a nonprofit group Reuters credited with organizing the meetings. A representative for the center did not immediately respond to a similar inquiry.
Butina attempted to infiltrate groups including the National Rifle Association as part of a secret effort to “establish unofficial lines of communications” between D.C. and Moscow, according to prosecutors. She pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent but has denied acting as a spy for the Russian government.
Moscow leaders have condemned the case and labeled Butina a “political prisoner.”
A former politician, Mr. Torshin, 65, served as deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia from 2015 through 2018. Federal prosecutors allege he effectively served as Butina’s handler prior to her arrest.
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Well, well, well - looks like the tide may be finally starting to turn on the previous administration.
And, this is just the beginning.
You should note that the requests for information is NOT limited to those in the Obama Administration. ANY communication between Treasury, the Federal Reserve and Ms. Butina and Alexander Torshin is included.
It will be interesting to learn the Center for the National Interest part in all of this. Who contacted them and WHY did they take part in arranging the meeting.
Nathan Sheets was the Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.
Hardly a "top economic official", but even if we agree with that description, the meeting in late 2016 clearly falls within the description of his duties.
Torshin & Butina also met with Stanley Fischer, The Federal Reserve Vice Chairman and an unnamed Sate Department official.
I think we can all guess why the State Department was present.
It's hilarious that 2 meetings with low level Agency employees sets their hair on fire but over 100 contacts between Trump's minions and Russia is a 'hoax'.
I suppose I am a bit curious as to whether the unnamed State Department official was an FBI or CIA agent...
Like I said, I'm curious about the Center for the National Interest part in this. They're an organization that leans pretty hard to the right but they are a respected think tank. They have some decidedly 'warm' concepts about Russia and they seem to have an unfounded idea that Russia has a leading economy that the US should respect.
Yet since it's pretty clear that there WAS some kind of surveillance was going on, it wouldn't surprise me if the CIA or FBI stuck a toe in...
They were busted rather soon after the contacts with Obama's team. Thank you Obama!
That's why Putin didn't like him.
Of a story that will go nowhere.
Well, let's see the score so far:
7 Trump campaign staff either convicted or plead guilty, 13 indicted Russian nationals, 12 indicted Russian military intel officers and 1 indicted Trump adviser
vs
0 Obama officials indicted, 0 Obama guilty pleas, 0 indicted foreign agents, 0 indicted or even accused Obama advisers.
Do you really believe anyone is "praying" the Obama administration will somehow come out on top in this comparison? That's like praying the sun will come up tomorrow, why bother, it's about as certain as certain can be.
Trump Fan:
What are the chances of Trump and his cronies being vindicated... and Obama going down?
Anyone with more than half a brain:
Not good.
Trump Fan:
Not good like one in a hundred?
Anyone with more than half a brain:
I'd say more like one in a million.
Trump Fan:
So you're telling me there's a chance?...
And that CIA Director would be...……………………..?
David Betrayus
His guilt was providing 'classified information' to a secretary--of whom he was having a relationship.
What ever. What happened at Helsinki? Was America betrayed?
"On April 23, 2015, Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials."
Nice try at false equivalency. You got nothing.
Well, that could be a false equivalency, even if it is true.
Patraeus was a flag grade officer whose dick took over during a midlife crisis. He was obligated to follow the law, military and otherwise. He was allowed to skate with a misdemeanor. Fair? No.
Trump, while being a ( fill in the blank ) is by virtue of being the POTUS capable of declassifying anything he wants and sharing it with any nation he wants to, until Congress reigns him in, by whatever means possible. Fair? No, but we have never elected a narcissistic megalomaniac before. The law means nothing to this man.
I'd have though even you'd have figured out by now that I don't pray. That's the sort of voodoo you lot go for. And, if i were one of you (thank the stars I'm not) I'd be doing it furiously for The Scumbag-in-Chief.
Are you ever going to come up with a name for this "someone?"
Do not care. What happened at Helsinki?
I sincerely doubt that.
Mexico will pay for the wall, right?
'dumbass president?' No. Quisling president.
Take that up with the insurance cartels. The money went to them.
The lame ass deflection is trying to equate a misdemeanor where the General was banging a journalist and sharing to much with the long list of felony convictions, guilty pleas and felony indictments surrounding Trump and his campaign. It's apples and orangutans.
When was a misdemeanor made into a non-crime that someone could be indicted or convicted of? No one claiming that there were ZERO Obama officials indicted or convicted of crime claiming that the crimes only counted if they were felonies. Heck, a President can be impeached for a misdemeanor, it's in the Constitution.
Obama paid nobody. Money comes from the congress which was GOP at the time.
Everything benefits the insurance cartels. That is the problem.
Both the House and Senate were in Democrat hands until almost a year after the PPACA was passed. Remember, it passed in early 2010 and the Republicans did not officially take over the House until 2011 AFTER the November 2010 elections. The Democrats wrote and passed the PPACA, even though they claimed it was from a proposal from the Heritage Foundation that was rejected by the GOP multiple times. And, Romneycare, which was another policy that they pointed to, was passed by a Democratic legislature in Massachusetts in 2006.
With 34 Democrats to 6 Republicans in Mass. Senate and 139 Democrats to 20 Republicans and 1 Independent in the Mass. House, Romney could have vetoed it and it would still have passed. In fact, Romney did veto 8 of the provisions in the law, and all of them were overturned by mid-June of that year:
That's the best they can ever seem to come up with. The vast majority of the time it's just pure lies.
No one was forced to buy anything but people who chose not to get coverage (and won't pay their medical bills) should pay a tiny tax for shifting their costs to the rest of us. And if the PPACA disappears altogether you'll getting your wish to make the insurance cartels even stronger, strip health care from millions of people and re-establish medical care debt as the no. 1 cause of bankruptcy in this country. You must be ecstatic at the suffering you're helping to restore. By the way, government at all levels "force" people to buy many things against their will. It's called taxation and some people in this country have the absurdly warped idea that it was founded as a tax-free zone.
1st Warrior,
Donald Trump personally dictated a false explanation for his campaign teams meeting with Russian dirty tricks emissaries which took place on June 9, 2016.
Trump personally lied about the reason for the meeting.
How can you with a straight face say there is no reason to investigate Trump and his campaign? What ever happened to people having contact with reality?
Why would they investigate the previous administration? To distract from the turd in chief?
Meh, no one cares. Once you are out of office hardly anyone gives a shit about what you did when you were there. Frankly, this is a pointless errand.
Oversight is part and parcel to Congress. While the political winds blow around every inquiry and investigation, this American wants those who have committed criminal activity to have the book thrown at them. Party be damned.
We elect every person sitting in government. The expectation they will follow the law, adhere to the constitution and be accountable is at the foundation of our Republic.
Lynne - I concur. I'm just getting sick and tired of both parties doing the ol' whaaa whaaa bit. They were elected to perform a function for us, their voters/constituents, and for the past 5 to 7 years, they've all been acting like little kids in the school yard.
Dammit - do your job or get outta town.
High bothsiderism.....the hiding place for those who can't seem or just damn refuse to understand the concepts of magnitude and quantity.
"Dammit-do your job or get out of town." Exactly. What did you say, do or promise at Helsinki, Trump? After all, we taxpayers paid for the damn plane, hotel and food.
And now we learn that Scumbag came back a day early and far more than a dollar short from his "big deal" with Un in Hanoi. Not only did he ever make any kind of deal with Un the first time but he actually totally fucked this chance by having a dictator-style tantrum by taking his ball and sulking home. Scumbag is the ideal of the rightwing dream leader: A total fucking failure at every turn and dirty as shit as a bonus.
No you don't. You didn't elect that fucking fascist POS Steven Miller or any of the other POSes that the Scumbag-in-Chief has hired as accomplices to his plan to sell out the US to the highest bidder.
Agree...None of us elected or selected the cabinet and many others roaming the halls of government. I should have been more concise when referring to elected. My bad🤔
Sorry that I seemed bit too harsh in my wording. I should have said "we."
How are we supposed to react to this - as a practical matter? Obviously no one wants foreign powers effing with our system. I think we can all agree on that. But in a country with the most free speech in the world, how do we expect to police this kind of thing? How do we reconcile our sanctification of free speech with rules about who you can talk to and what people can say?
Look at the big picture instead of each little piece of information on its own. One good place to start is why every single Trump connected crony lied about their connections and communications with Russians and other foreign operatives. This isn't about normal communications with people and countries. If you are having trouble discerning the differences you have more work to do, it isn't all that hard.
What 'fake news coup' was that BF? Please use your Ninja powers to be specific.
That doesn't impress me because the lies haven't led in turn to revelations about serious conspiracies or other violations of the law. The people who have been charged with lying haven't been charged also with conspiring to illegally manipulate the election, which was the initial focus of the investigation. That is: to the extent that they misled investigators, it wasn't to cover up something illegal.
The fact is people lie because they don't trust our system to treat them fairly. Even if they are confident they did nothing illegal, they understand that this is a political process and their political enemies will be more than happy to condemn a legal act because it "looks bad."
It's that standard rightwing desperate and degenerate attempt to flip reality and truth on theirs heads. It's SOP for republicans to lie like hell to deflect attention away from their treason against this country not to mention massive general scumbaggery.
More of that famous fish "I am NOT partisan" BS.
Can't wait for his next post about how the Mueller investigation is baaaaaad.
IMHO, a good start would be a requirement to identify origin, especially national origin. We can block 'SPAM' and I equate government sponsored propaganda with 'SPAM'.
It's not that I want to censor journalism or even personal opinion. But if you are a paid bot you should be identified as such.
Facebook just shut down a woman for not disclosing RT was her parent company.
It's funny.....well ...… no...… insane...… that our government is spending all their time "Investigating" each other, than they are governing "FOR THE PEOPLE" !
I guess that's just the way the "Cookie" is crumbling right now.
And there are pimple popping folks in this country that actually "LIKE IT" !
Just another scummy Republican stunt to try to get people to stop looking at the traitors and scumbags in the Scumbag-in-Chief's vast criminal and treasonous enterprise.
If this is anything at all like the many "investigations" into Clinton it will be just another massive republican waste of money and time. And if Grassley thinks he can deflect away from Scumbag's massive corruption, collusion and criminality he's as delusional as Scumbag is.
This just makes me think that most of our government 'elected' officials are on a power trip.
This one committee has a lot of power.
I don't think senate bodies are supposed to be investigative. That is why we have the DOJ and the FBI.
It seems the house has investigative powers and power to direct other agencies. But it seems that power is limited to existing law.
IMO we have three separate branches of government for a reason yet as time goes on, the differences between the branches are being blurred to where they all do the same things and/or basically whatever the hell they want to do.
I think you may have confused the problems of criminality vs malfeasance of office. Congress cannot and does not investigate criminal behavior. In its proper role in overseeing the activities of the many departments and offices of government it's role and responsibility is to make sure that those departments are being run properly and ethically. The final item under its enumerated powers (Art. I, Sec.8) reads:
If, during this oversight function, evidence of criminality is suspected Congress refers that evidence to the DoJ. But it is Congress's constitutionally mandated duty to investigate any department or officer (including a President) if there is a question that laws have been broken or "unfaithfully executed."
Thanks. I was reading about it the other day and the roles they all play. From what I was reading, the House has more investigative powers than the Senate.
What a pathetic joke. The desperation reeks.
One campaign solicited and received dirt on their opponent from actual Russian government officials.
It wasn't the Trump campaign.
Proof? Links?
Opinion pieces aren't "proof".
I didn't think I needed to explain.
I thought the Steele dossier was common knowledge.
It's like having to provide proof that 2+2=4
Considering the dossier is from a former UK spy, how would that be colluding with the Russians?
Who paid the UK spy to meet with Russians?
Then why post a link full of them?
From what I can gather, a lot of people.
That's why I said one campaign solicited and received dirt on their opponent from actual Russian government officials. The Clinton campaign consisted of a lot of people.
But, you aren't claiming that "2+2=4" you are claiming 2+2=100, Steele isn't Russian, he is a former MI6 agent, a BRITISH agent so tell me, when did Great Britain become part of Russia?
So, Marco Rubio and, the RNC were part of the Clinton campaign? Nice to know.
Not for someone as desperate in his hatred of Hillary as the fish. Any and every piece of BS is worth a shot.
You're going to break poor Sean's brain with questions like that. You can tell he and his buddies are in total desperation mode since it used to be "the Steele dossier showed no collusion" and now it's all about "who paid Steele to dig up all the dirt on that shows collusion."
Which Russians are you referring to and where are you getting this idea?
And it wasn't the Clinton campaign who started that investigation. It was Paul Singer, a deep-pocket conservative owner of the Washington Beacon and early Rubio supporter.
And, that's because that was where the dirt was, of course.
The idea that the "real" investigation will uncover that the true criminals are the Clinton and Obama people is a mainstay of far right nut jobs. They are known as Q Anon, and many of them are likely mentally ill.
Proceed with caution Trump followers.